


Firecrackers

by orphan_account



Series: Ready to Run AU [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 16:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5135405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geoff surprises Joel with something from their past. A Ready to Run AU piece for the Fourth of July.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firecrackers

When Joel woke up, it was dark. He was in the car--the dash was all green lights, and the vinyl was warm and sticky and familiar against his back. His whole body ached from being cramped in the passenger seat for… however long he was asleep for. He was too tall to sleep in the passenger seat. Geoff could squeeze himself into the front seat, but Geoff wasn't 6'2" like Joel was, and Geoff slept in this half-curled-up position that made him fit more easily into smaller places. Joel’s knees ached if he couldn’t stretch them out during the night, and since they were usually crammed in their beat up station wagon like anchovies in a can that stretching time was very valuable, so normally he wouldn't just up and fall asleep in the front. Not unless he was exhausted.

The last thing he remembered was breakfast, which was a lackluster burger and shitty, greasy fries at a diner in California. Joel had been driving all night. They'd been somewhere in Oregon, heisting, and after they got the money they got the fuck out of dodge. That had been at about two in the morning. The excitement after a robbery usually had his adrenaline levels way too high for him to get any sleep for a while, so Geoff slept in the back while Joel drove. He stopped at the diner around seven, and after they ate, Joel got in the passenger's seat and... fell asleep, he guessed.

He had an audition the next day somewhere in New Mexico, a show that would take about four months of audition time and then maybe two weeks of production time--if he got it. That was why they'd hit two banks and three convenience stores in a very short amount of time. Four months for Joel meant four months of a motel room and four months of food that Geoff had to pay for while Joel was busy. Plus all of Geoff's other... entertainment.

Geoff's dealer probably almost busted a nut when he found out how much Geoff was planning to get if Joel got the role. "I want to build up enough resistance to coke," Geoff had told him. "That I can go to a movie theater out of my mind and not get caught so I can experience whatever shitty films are available. Can you imagine what watching the new Jurassic Park movie would be like if you're completely stoned, Joel? Pretty fucking awesome.”

Most of those were all ifs, really. But Geoff was probably going to see that movie high anyway.

The clock on the dashboard said 8:14. Speaking of Geoff, Joel noted as he sat up and rubbed at the dried drool on his chin, he was nowhere to be found. Not in the driver's seat, not in the backseat.

The trunk slammed shut. Well, he wasn't totally alone... wherever they were.

Thankfully, Geoff opened the door, and he had a beer in one hand and a beer in the crook of his elbow, pressed against his chest. He offered Joel a grin.

"What's up, sleepyhead?" he crooned, which earned him a scowl.

"Where are we?" Joel asked. His voice was rough and gravelly. His throat felt like a driveway.

"Why don't you get out of the fuckin' car and see, Joel?"

Joel unbuckled his seatbelt--the removal of that constriction felt great. He hadn't realized how much that had hurt until then--and cautiously opened the door.

He examined the area as he stretched, his back popping. The hill they were on was all rich, green grass, and it overlooked a small gathering of houses and a dirt road. The hill wasn't so far away that the whole area looked minuscule, but Joel could get the picture. It was a picnic of sorts. A bonfire. There must've been fifty people there, gathered around the fire, sitting in lawn chairs and folding chairs, eating and drinking. He could make out a grill. A herd of small kids ran around with sparklers.

And then he remembered _exactly_ where they were.

"No way," he said sharply, turning to look at Geoff over the car. Geoff could've been eating shit by the bucketful by the way he was grinning. "It's... it's our fucking..."

"Bring back memories?" Geoff asked gently. Joel let him come around to the other side of the car, and he leaned up against the hood, offering Joel one of the beers.

"This is... this is Texas. This is--"

"Where we grew up," Geoff filled in for him. "Yeah, I know, dumbass. That's why I brought us here."

"But... why?" Joel asked. "I have an audition tomorrow... we were in California... did you really drive all the way here?"

"Broke speed limits when I could and the gas came out of your pocket."

"It's a shared pocket!" Joel snapped. "I cannot believe you drove us here. To this... exact place. Why, exactly, did you drive us here to this exact place?"

"It's the Fourth of July, man," Geoff said. "It's tradition."

"We haven't been here in _three years._ "

"It was tradition when we lived here, okay? And you mentioned fireworks."

He only barely remembered _that_ part. He figured he must've said something about that at the diner, because it _was_ the Fourth of July. Joel couldn't deny that he hadn't been thinking about it in the past few days. It had been more than a week of a sudden influx of American flags wherever they went and diner specials out the ass and he hadn’t been about to forget anytime soon. He had been worn out. He could’ve said anything.

He doubted, however, that whatever he said was a call for Geoff to drive them all the way back to their hometown to watch fireworks on the exact spot that they had watched them for as long as they had fucking been friends. Ever since the fucking beginning of high school, they'd sat on this hill, snuck some beers, and just chilled out as the annual party crackled below them.

Geoff was right. It had been tradition. But once they left, they didn't really plan on coming back. Joel wasn’t really expecting to ever come back. Now that they were here, though…

"Does anyone know that we're here?" Joel asked, twisting the top off his beer. "Any of... anyone we know?"

"Nah. Nobody but the chick who was working the nearest gas station, where I got the drinks. But that might've been somewhere in Arizona. Or near El Paso."

"You drove all the way here," Joel said again, still incredulous. "That took..."

"The instant I got in the car after breakfast we were on our way here. You fell asleep at, like, 7:30? Maybe?"

"I slept the entire time?"

"No, actually," Geoff said, tipping his beer at Joel. "You woke up for an hour, I think, and at one point you sang along to Plow United."

"No I fucking didn't."

"Yes, you fucking _did,_ Joel. How would you _know_ if you didn't?"

"Because I don't remember waking up!"

“How can you not remember it?” Geoff asked, laughing.

“Alright, listen,” Joel said, feigning annoyance, but he couldn’t get rid of his grin. “Even if I was awake, I _know_ I didn’t sing to your shitty music.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s _shitty_ and I don’t know any of the fucking words to it.”

“I’m sure if you were to listen to it--”

The first firework went off with a sharp whistle and an almost deafening crack. The darkening Texas sky lit up blue. Whoops and shrieks echoed from the party below them. The similarities to Joel’s memories of this place were… uncanny. The hill, the smoky smell of the bonfire, the bitterness of the beer, the warm heat of Geoff next to him, through their t-shirts, both of them sticky and muggy as the air, breathless with laughter, breathless with awe.

Joel remembered thinking that he didn’t know if he could love Geoff more than he loved him then.  
But he did now. God, did he fucking ever.

Even though Geoff was a fucking crackhead with a shitty taste in music and a shittier attitude, and his breath stank all the fucking time but refused to kiss Joel after he smoked, and drank whiskey instead of beer even when they were low on money, Geoff was the guy in his passenger seat. He was the guy who Joel cuddled up to when they were squatting in decaying houses that smelled like corpses and piss because they couldn’t stand one more day in the car. He was the guy who would always put himself in danger so Joel could try again and again to get a job doing what he loved best, instead of forcing him to just settle down and work at a fucking gas station or something until they could survive on their own. He was the one who made sure Joel’s gun was clean and his face was completely obscured by his mask so there was no chance his face was going to be on the news, and that the only time anyone would see his face was in headshots and not police sketches.

Geoff was the guy who spent all their spare money on cocaine but he was also the guy who drove Joel all the way home, from California to Nowhere, Texas, so he could see the fireworks they had grown up seeing.

And man, if Joel didn’t love Geoff.

“Hey,” Geoff said, bringing Joel back to the present. “Cheers.”

“To?” Joel asked, but he brought their bottles together to clink anyway.

“To... I don’t know, man. Fuckin’ America.”

“What about,” Joel started, rolling his eyes. “What about… to the fourth of July. And all the ones we’ve spent together.”

Geoff scoffed.

“And all the ones that I’m gonna spend alone after I kill you.”

“Sounds good enough to me, you dumb, sentimental fucker.”

But the harshness was completely dulled by Geoff’s winning smile, and Joel couldn’t help but smile back.


End file.
